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Sony's PlayStation Network, Hulu streaming service, and other parts of the Sony Entertainment Network have been offline for a day or more, some users were reporting on Friday.

One PCMag staffer based in New York wasn't able to log into the Sony Entertainment Network late on Friday as scores of Sony customers took to message boards like Yahoo Answers to report similar stories.

UPDATE: Late on Friday, Sony indicated that the network was being serviced and would be back online by around midnight (see below).

"When I try to sign in on my [PlayStation 3] I just get this message: 'Sony Entertainment Network is currently undergoing maintenance.' My brother (whose PS3 is in the same house) can still sign in without any problems. Can someone tell me what's going on, or just tell me what to do/how long will it take until Sony has fixed their problem?" wrote a customer named Michael to kick off a Yahoo Answers thread at around mid-morning Eastern time.

Several commenters on the thread reported the same issue and said their access to the Sony Entertainment Network had been cut off since Thursday.

Others guessed that the network would be back online in "five or six hours." However, judging by the thread, that loose deadline came and wentas of 9 p.m. Eastern, users were still reporting that service had yet to be restored.

Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but one Yahoo Answers commenter pointed to the following message on the Sony Entertainment Network support page:

Planned Maintenance

As part of our continuing efforts to improve our products and services, our servers will be undergoing updates and maintenance this Thursday, January 17th, beginning at 8:00 a.m. (Pacific Time).

Note: The maintenance end time has been extended until approximately 9:00 p.m. (Pacific Time) Friday, January 18th.

Services will be unavailable during this time. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your support.

Regards, Sony Team

Some Sony customers will no doubt be having flashbacks to the 24-day PlayStation Network outage in 2011, the result of a devastating attack on the gaming service by hackers, but the current situtation doesn't appear nearly as serious at this point.

Is the Sony Entertainment Network working for you? Let us know in comments.

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle and Japan Times, among other newspapers and periodicals.
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